Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Behold! Holly Hill Hits the Market

SELLER: Estate of Brooke AstorLOCATION: Briarcliff Manor, NYPRICE: $12,900,000SIZE: 10,000 square feet (approx.), 13 bedrooms, 9 full and 2 half bathroomsDESCRIPTION: ...At the heart of this bucolic 64.60 acre haven, the 1927 stone manor designed by prominent architect William Delano embodies the quiet elegance of a classic English country house. There are 6 marble fireplace and 13 bedrooms, including staff quarters...Indoor and outdoor pools are featured along with extensive dependencies including a greenhouse, 4-bedroom gardener's cottage, carriage house and barn.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Today we go from the real estate ree-donkulousNeverland Ranch saga to the utterly soo-blime country estate of New York City's inestimable (and deceased) grande dame Brooke Astor which only this week was placed on the market with an asking price of $12,900,000.

Since philanthropic Miz Astor passed on to meet her great philanthropist in the sky there has been considerable hoo-ha and much ink spilled over Miz Astor's legendary Park Avenue doo-plex, currently listed at a spine tingling $34,000,000 (originally listed at an even more spine tingling $46,000,000).

Starting with Mister Max Abelson's customarily thorough report in the NY Observer this morning, we also expect much hullabaloo will be made in the press and on the gossipy real estate blogs about the listing of Miz Astor's beloved estate Holly Hill, which occupies 64.60 rolling acres over looking the mighty Hudson River in Briarcliff Manor, NY.

Any of the children who read such gorgeous and glossy rags as Vanity Fair or New York Magazine already know that Holly Hill is where Miz Astor expired at the extremely ripe old age of 105. Miz Astor is survived by one aged son, Anthony Marshall, who has been indicted on 16 lurid and scandalous counts of stealing from his mother's mammoth money pile in the last years of her life when she was unquestionably compromised with Alzheimer's. Mister Marshall has, naturally, pleaded not guilty to the salacious allegations.

Listing information for Holly Hill indicates that the main manse, an utterly dignified and well proportioned stone manor house, measures in at approximately 10,000 square feet and includes 13 bedrooms and nine full and 2 half bathrooms, a count that includes the staff quarters.

Built in 1927 and designed by noted society architect William Adams Delano, Holly Hill contains a perfect and elegantly curving staircase that is currently and quirkily lined with dog portraits, a 42-foot long living room with luscious lemon chiffon colored curtains, a banquet sized dining room, a book lined library surrounded in pickled paneling, and two sun porches including one Miz Astor dubbed the Philosopher's Room, although we don't know why.

Additionally, according to listing information and Mister Abelson's report, there is a Memory Room lined with personal mementos and photographs, a wet bar, natch, a kitchen with butler's pantry and a one person elevator which we presume was installed to haul the most august centenarian owner from the perfectly played public rooms to her pink and cream colored private quarters which features a small balcony and one of the six marble mantled fireplaces.

Holly Hill includes both an outdoor swimming pool as well as a long and thin indoor pool which Miz Astor reportedly preferred heated to a well beyond lukewarm 90 degrees. Listing information also reveals the property includes garaging for seven cars, a four bedroom gardener's cottage, a chauffeur's apartment atop the 5 bay carriage house, a barn and root cellar, a large but apparently empty greenhouse, extensive cutting gardens, a croquet lawn, an apple orchard, something called the Love Temple and a most interestingly, a pet cemetery.

Every square inch of Holly Hill appears to have been immaculately maintained and the dee-voonly done day-core, while far too clenched jaw and Oscar de la Rentapantsuit-ish for Your Mama's personal taste, is beyond reproach even by the most cynical and/or modern minded folks. While it's certainly possible and perfectly understandable that any new owner and steward of Holly Hill will desire to update and modernize the mansion and its dependencies, given that the developement rights are intact, it's also a very distinct possibility that a developer will purchase the property and break up the large and very expensive to maintain estate into smaller estates. We're certain real estate preservationists will cry foul at the notion. We'll, uncharacteristically, bite our snarky tongue.

30 comments:

wow. the very best. and to my mind, quite underpriced. compare to what cornelia guest is trying to get (20m at last look) for another old money estate, her late mother's place in old westbury, which is being marketed by daniel gale. quite extraordinary to see from these interior shots that the house of a 105 year old woman (when she died) is in such superb condition. still extremely well maintained. annette de la renta is probably the one to credit for that.

i forgot to add that if this place doesn't go to contract in the next month at the ask, or over the ask because of a bidding war, then you'll know this country is in for some very scary times. the property either adjoins or is very close to the rockefeller estate, kykuit.

this house is waaaaayyyyy underpriced. The market really must be crap right now. This house would have been at least double 5 years ago, and 66 acres in westchester is almost unheard of. Most mansions are on an acre or two.

Ben and Jen did look in this area when they were supposedly moving to NY after their first kid.

Mariah Carey had a house a few miles away, double the size, on a similar lot with no water views, surrounded by a highway for double the price. She listed it for $40M and sold it for $22M TEN years ago. The market is done!!!

Wow, that is beautiful, screams "country estate", how I wish I could have one...Although, the dog pictures on the stairwell combined with all the weird little shelves & cluttery stuff on the table under the stairs is kind of weird to me.

What a nice home. Along with the Helmsley estate in Greenwich, they epitomize quality and fine living. This one is much smaller but more comfortable. Amazing that a property with so much acreage is only a 45 minute ride to grand central. Not that anyone would probably ride metro north if they lived there.

in an earlier comment i said this property either adjoins or is very near to the rockefeller estate. well i just looked at it on msn live search and i guess if very near means a couple of miles up the road then i'm just barely right. it certainly doesn't adjoin. the estate is on scarborough rd in briarcliff manor at the point where the road makes a turn from north to east. it is not surrounded by other estates, but more like countrfied suburbia of the upper middle variety. in fact, there is another house very close to the main house. doesn't look like 65 acres, more like 20, but maybe. . . similar to the situation of the cz guest place in old westbury on long island. still love it, though!

Oh and Viva! ––– the jury's still out on sonny boy (sad but true). An article in New York Magazine last year paints a very different picture; the writer claims he came away with an altered impression of Tony & Charlene; crass, but not guilty (although in those circles it may very well be one in the same).

Dated interiors? Check out the Sotheby's Greenwich site sometime. It's chock full of huge houses, most probably built on spec in the last ten years, with interiors that aspire to this kind of decoration but don't come close to achieving it. Many of the most successful decorators in New York right now are in the business of putting this look together, bunny williams, mario, etc. But you can't just manufacture this scene out of cut cloth. Not to mention that their clients would never be happy with this. Generally, I think they are way too insecure. They would demand more of everything. These rooms would never (have) cost enough for them.

That hallway with the staircase and the dog paintings is ripped from the pages of one of those English country life magazines. Quite astounding. There are very few people who live like this in America. You almost never see a picture of it. This is not tacky, this is slightly eccentric which is precisely what is so wonderful about it. And also so great to see in an American house because you almost never do.

I notice that in the dining room there is a secondary (and smaller) dining table, the same as in Miss Astor's Park Avenue residence. Is that where the madame eats when she's not hosting a dinner? Or is that where additional wares (or even food) are put whenever there IS a dinner?.. Is that de rigueur in Society dining rooms? I'm just curious...

Anyway, the house and grounds are divine: lived in, gracious, elegant, rich.. unlike many other overstuffed mansions that try too hard to scream that everything in them is expensive.

I think that the reason that this place is priced the way it is, is that it isn't in the right town. Location, location, location. Briarcliff Manor is nice, but it's not the kind of place that a New Yorker is going to buy a country house at this point. And all the people in this price range who are looking to get out of the city want to live in Greenwich. That's the bottom line.